Conventional dishwashers normally include two racks configured to support items to be washed, such as dishes, glasses, bowls, cooking utensils, and the like. Typically, an upper rack is disposed close to the top of the washing chamber and is used to hold glasses, cups, bowls, and other relatively smaller items. The lower rack is positioned near the bottom of the chamber at a considerable distance below the upper rack to provide vertical clearance to place larger items, such as dishes and platters, on edge and to place food preparation bowls and pots up-side-down on the lower rack for washing. Each rack normally is supplied with an array of spaced apart, generally vertical tines or fingers which support and separate the individual items. The optimum spacing between adjacent tines for supporting thin items like dishes is much less than for supporting thick items like mixing bowls and pans. Thus, any fixed array of tines is less than optimum for all possible combinations of items to be washed.
There have been numerous suggestions for arrangements to provide adjustable tines in a rack assembly for user flexibility. Reference is made, for example, to U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,126,098; 3,269,548; 3,402,975; 3,752,322; 4,046,261; 4,606,464; and 5,351,837.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,682,465 describes a dishwasher rack having an entire tine row assembly that is movable along the rack support elements. One end of the row assembly is slidable within a rail member, and the other end of the row assembly is attached to a slider element that, in turn, attaches to one of the support elements. The pitch (i.e., spacing) of the individual tines is fixed relative to the row assembly, and the tines cannot be adjusted to accommodate articles of different sizes.
The industry is continuously seeking improvements in rack assemblies that provide consumers with ease of adjustment of tines. The present invention relates to such improvements.